Juan Ignacio Molina Building
A place with a lot of history:
The site where the Science Building will be located has been part of the history of the city and the country. In the middle of the seventeenth century it hosted the church and convent of the Jesuit fathers, housing the first Chilean scientist, Abbe Juan Ignacio Molina.
When the expulsion of this order was decreed, in 1767, the place was occupied by the Dominican religious until 1822, when they emigrated to another site in the Playa Ancha sector.
In 1828, and as a result of the closing of the sessions of Congress in the capital, the enclosure, including its church as the convent, was used to hold the sessions of Congress. As a result, the Political Constitution of the Republic was published, which for the first time in a constitutional text uses the name “President of the Republic” for the Executive and initiating the bicameral regime (Deputies and Senators) of the National Congress.
Later, as it was found in ruins at the end of the 19th century, it was partially demolished to house the Regiment’s “Barracks of the Civic Battalion No. 2”. Its total demolition occurred after the 1906 earthquake, giving way to the new construction that we know as the Severín Building, which was used by Carabineros de Chile until 2004, when it was abandoned by the institution, suffering a fire that same year, and maintaining its ruin to this day.
To know more about its history: https://cinv.uv.cl/publicaciones/#refugio-de-cientificos
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